Cisco Webex has outlined its new AI strategy to transform communication and collaboration.
Announced at Cisco's WebexOne event in Anaheim, California, Webex's AI strategy encompasses real-time media models (RMMs) and the Webex AI Codec.
Webex aims to leverage real-time audio and video communications to address everyday challenges, including ensuring perfect audio and video calls even with low bandwidth. Cisco also announced the launch of its new Webex AI Assistant with new features to improve customer productivity and accuracy.
Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Cisco Security and Collaboration, commented:
We’re at the tipping point of a new era of hybrid work, with AI holding the key to helping us bridge the gap and enable us all to work and communicate to our full potential. Our Webex platform has long enabled our rapid pace of innovation. Today’s announcement is a monumental step forward, as customers will benefit from AI being pervasive in every aspect of the Webex platform."
The Webex AI strategy and Webex AI Assistant will be integrated across the complete Webex portfolio, including the Webex Suite, Cisco Collaboration devices, Webex Contact Center, Webex Connect and Webex Control Hub.
Real-Time Media Models
RMMs in Webex will improve audio and video quality by parsing visual and audible cues such as gestures and walking out of the room during a meeting. The models can take multiple media streams and develop multiple outputs, including people and object recognition and action analytics, such as movement and gestures. RMMs in Webex will allow audio and video channels to be utilised as context signals in conventional text-based capabilities like meeting summaries and highlights.
Webex users will benefit from valuable real-time insights by RMMs blending AI for text, audio and video. One future feature that Webex is planning is the capability to recognise when a meeting participant has stepped away from a meeting and consequently capture meeting notes to bring that person up to speed after they return to the call.
Webex AI Codec
The new AI Codec in Webex is a generative AI solution that aims to "redefine real-time communication", according to Cisco, and address the challenge of audio quality when a user experiences disruption when connecting a call from their car or an area with poor connectivity.
The audio Codec intends to provide crystal-clear audio irrespective of network conditions. Webex's efficiency with its AI Codec enables significant transmission redundancy to recover from network packet loss. Webex AI Codec includes built-in speech enhancement functions, such as noise removal, de-reverberation and bandwidth extension to offer excellent audio clarity.
Webex will leverage machine learning techniques to enhance video quality using Super Resolution. It will deliver high-definition meetings that offer high-quality video regardless of bandwidth conditions.
